If your zipper's caught on to the surrounding fabric and holding on with the jaws of life, you can free it with a number of different household items, like a pencil, some soap, or even Windex.

We all have to deal with stuck zippers at some point in our lives, but you can stop wasting your time wiggling and help free it with a bit of lubricant. The easiest and least messy lubricant, according to video weblog Howcast, is a graphite pencil—just rub the teeth on both sides of the zipper with your pencil and try again.

If that doesn't help, you might need a more heavy-duty (read: messy) lubricant. Howcast recommends bar soap, petroleum jelly, or lip balm, though readers Java-Princess and obsoletist both swear by Windex, too. We haven't heard of Windex being used for this, but it's easy to understand why—like bar soap—its soapy consistency would be good at slipping the zipper out of its jam.

Java-Princess also delves into the method she uses to carefully get zippers unstuck without ruining the fabric:

Test a small area of the fabric to see if it's damaged by Windex (or whatever lubricant you're using). If the fabric's okay, soak the fabric around the zipper with Windex and slowly—as in with infinite patience—pull the zipper in the direction to unzip. Go a little past where you think it won't go any more then relax your grip. Repeat. Each time the zipper should move a little tiny bit further. If at any time the fabric bunches that you can see a tug on it might help things then give it a hard tug while maintaining tension on the zipper, this is not the time to be delicate, you are trying to pull the fabric out from the inside of the zipper mechanism. The Windex is a good, non-oil based lubricant.

I've done this more than a few times with success, from thick plastic zippers to metal ones. By soak I mean flood the fabric—the more the better. Don't forget to wash the fabric immediately afterwards.

Check out the link above to see it in action, and if you've found your own household zipper fixes, let us know about them in the comments.